


Terms

by WilliamWonderland



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reverse Falls, Betrayal, Blood, Character Study, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Heart-to-Heart, Human Bill Cipher, Human Will Cipher, Manipulaiton, Not BillDip, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Regret, The above are only alluded to so far, Torture, Triangle Bill Cipher, Triangle Will Cipher
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-11
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-04-21 13:56:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14286402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilliamWonderland/pseuds/WilliamWonderland
Summary: Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, a bridge refuses to burn completely.Bill didn’t like to revisit his memories in general, least of all these memories in particular. One night, while Bill was revisiting the charred remains of a bridge long burned, Pine Tree put in the effort to douse the flames and erect the scaffolding. Now it's become up to Bill to rebuild and bring the single most influential being back into his life, for better or for worse.Here's hoping he wasn't too late.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onionstories](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onionstories/gifts).



> A writing exercise I took way too far. It's able to stand alone as its own thing, but I did have ideas for a multi-chapter plot. If you wanna see it continue, lemme know in the comments.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To say Dipper was surprised by what he saw when he pulled himself out of the attic window and onto the roof would have been the lie of the century. Just as he’d predicted, the yellow-clad demon lay sprawled across the wooden shingles, gazing up at the stars.
> 
> “What are you doing up here, Bill?”
> 
> “Oh, wouldn’t you like to know~?”

Dipper awoke at 1:37am to the thumps and creaks of something on the roof.

The teen sat up in bed, warily watching the slanted ceiling of his and Mabel’s bedroom. He glanced over to see his twin sister fast asleep, tangled up in her blankets with a stuffed unicorn. He smiled in fond amusement as his sister gave a stuttering snore. The smile faltered, however, when he heard the creaks of the roof above him, causing his gaze to snap once more to the ceiling.

Under any other circumstance, Dipper would have assumed it was a raccoon and just rolled over to go back to sleep, but whatever was up there sounded heavier. _Much_ heavier. Dipper rubbed the sleep from his eyes and took a quick glance at the clock. It was nearly two in the morning now. Who on God’s green earth would be up on the roof at this hour?

Dipper had one guess…

With practiced dexterity, Dipper eased his way out of bed, rising slowly to make sure the mattress didn’t squeak to alert his snoozing twin. He grabbed a pair of socks from the drawer to muffle his footsteps and swiped his jacket from off the floor as he padded his way to the bedroom door. He paused once more to listen, and when he heard the groaning creaks again, Dipper made up his mind to go check it out for himself.

The bedroom door creaked as Dipper opened it, only just barely enough for him to squeeze out to minimize the noise. His gaze swept up and down the darkened hallway, scoping for anyone else who might be up besides him and whoever was on the roof.

All was quiet, and so Dipper carefully tiptoed his way down the hall, close to the wall where the floor had more support and didn’t groan beneath his feet. At the end of the hall, he reached up to snatch at the string that dangled from the ceiling and pulled down the trapdoor with the ladder leading up to the attic.

To say Dipper was surprised by what he saw when he pulled himself out of the attic window and onto the roof would have been the lie of the century. Just as he’d predicted, the yellow-clad demon lay sprawled across the wooden shingles, gazing up at the stars. It’d only been two weeks since he and Mabel had found Bill half-dead in the forest, and he’d already begun to take every opportunity he could to test Mabel’s good heart and hospitality in insisting they let him stay. From flying cutlery to talking throw pillows, Bill had been pushing the Pines family’s patience from day one.

“What are you doing up here, Bill?” Dipper asked with no small tinge of irritation. “You’re going to wake Mabel and the others!”

Bill tilted his head back against the roof towards Dipper, eyebrows raised in muted surprise before the reaction was overshadowed by a sly grin. The blond rolled over onto his stomach, propping his chin in his hands to face the teen as he kicked his feet idly in the air. Dipper could almost call the stance playful, a mockery of Mabel’s favorite position to color on the floor, if not for the sharp glint in the demon’s yellow eye. Bill Cipher was anything but innocent.

“Oh, wouldn’t you like to know~?” Bill trilled gleefully. He chuckled heartily at Dipper’s apprehensive glare. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head, Pine Tree! I’m not doing anything in particular, I just wanted to come up here and stargaze! Live a little, y’know?”

“Stargazing? As if. Since when would you be caught dead doing something so passive?” Dipper wasn’t convinced in the slightest. He defiantly approached where Bill lay on the roof, glaring the demon down. A glowing yellow eye followed him the entire way, the blond’s smirk never dropping from his lips. It was predatory, and it took everything Dipper had not to shrink back like the meek prey Bill saw him as. Nevertheless, he made it, and plopped down next to Bill just as the demon rolled onto his back once more, folding his arms back to cushion his head.

“Awe, you don’t think I could have a secret soft side, Pine Tree~? Your sister would be devastated to hear that!” Dipper scoffed at that.

“Mabel’s got nothing to do with this. What’s your deal? You’re acting weird.” Dipper paused. “Well– weird _er_. Than usual. You get what I mean!” He ground out with a frustrated huff as his attempt to amend his accusation fell apart, crossing his arms and grumbling to himself.

Bill eyed Dipper with a raised eyebrow momentarily before returning his gaze to the stars. “It’s not weird at all, Pine Tree!”

“Exactly! It’s _not_ weird at all! That’s what’s weird about it!” Dipper shot back. His patience was starting to wear thin, but he had to know. Bill wasn’t acting like his normal self, and that could only mean trouble. If Dipper didn’t at least try to handle the situation, who knows what could happen? He didn’t know how much of this circular banter he could take, and he could only expect yet another witty retort from the demon stretched out beside him.

No such retort came, however. A silence stretched out that Dipper hadn’t expected. He glanced down at Bill to see his own gaze fixated on the stars glistening across the dark sky. The demon’s trademark smirk had been replaced by a thin, flat line, leaving his expression unreadable. If anything, that only managed to make Dipper even more anxious. As the silence continued, the teen tentatively leaned over Bill in an attempt to redirect his attention back to him. “Dude, you alive in there?”

Bill blinked, shaking his head as though to clear it. He looked back up at the young Pines, his brow furrowing in irritation. It was clear he was starting to get fed up with Dipper’s pushy inquiries.

“Why do you even care, Pine Tree? What do you have to gain from knowing anything about me? Nothing, really! I’m no longer powerful enough to manage anything more than the parlor tricks you’ve seen, so why don’t you keep your cute little button nose out of my business and on your face where it belongs, huh?”

Dipper was taken aback by Bill’s sudden biting tone. He’d been so chipper just moments ago, the abrupt change was difficult for the teen to process, and he recoiled a little on instinct. When he allowed his brain the few seconds it required to properly sift through what Bill had said, he began to realize that he had an entirely new problem on his hands.

While it was true that Bill had been weakened significantly since his reincarnation years after Weirdmageddon, he was still a viable threat in his own right. He was chaotic enough when he was passive, entertaining himself with his “parlor tricks”, but now it was quite clear that Bill was angry. If there was one thing Dipper knew, it was that an angry Bill led to nothing but trouble. He had to change tactics, and as much as he distrusted Bill, he knew this situation would call for some TMC—Tender Mabel Care.

Dipper sighed and shifted uncomfortably on the uneven slats that made up the shack’s roofing, glancing up at the stars. “So…” he began, trying to slide into a conversational tone, “If you really do like stargazing so much, what about it do you like?”

“You know what, why do you even care so much?” Bill sat up abruptly to glare menacingly at his unwanted companion. There was a cutting sting to his tone, a hiss like an agitated cat, or rather a venomous snake coiling in preparation to strike. Dipper was on thin ice.

“I was just a little curious, man, relax!” Dipper insisted, hands raised in surrender. “I mean, I never knew you had any hobbies, let alone something as niche as stargazing. I thought maybe it’d be a good way to get us talking, you know? Like Mabel wants us to.”

Bill watched the teen with a narrowed eye for a moment or two, gauging the plausibility of Dipper’s motive. Dipper didn’t press further, not wanting to risk provoking the demon any more than he already had. When a few moments passed without any further comments from Dipper, Bill warily eased back onto the wooden slats of the Shack’s roof. His gaze returned to the night sky, softening a bit as his expression began to grow more thoughtful than hostile.

“It feels wrong,” Bill finally mumbled after a while of awkward silence.

“What?”

“I said it feels wrong!” Bill sat up again, and Dipper feared for a moment that it would lead to another aggressive face-off. Instead, the Pines boy was surprised to watch Bill hunch over, burying his face in his hands in frustration. “Not stargazing or whatever when I’m thinking about– when I’m _thinking_ ,” the demon quickly amended, “just doesn’t sit right with me.”

“Wait,” Dipper interjected, his curiosity piqued, “You said ‘thinking about’. Thinking about what?”

“I just meant thinking, Pine Tree! Stop reading so deep into everything, you’re gonna burn out that primitive human processor of yours!”

This was getting him nowhere. Just as Dipper began to think he was onto Bill’s antics, the demon started talking him in circles all over again. He sat back, running a hand through his brunet curls with a frustrated sigh. Direct provocation wasn’t working. It was time to switch tactics again.

“Okay fine, then what sorts of things do you think about that stargazing helps so much?”

Bill shrugged. “Oh, you know!”

“I really don’t,” Dipper sighed, stretching out to lay back on the roof beside Bill, “which is why I asked the question in the first place?”

The innocent ribbing on Dipper’s part was a gamble, risking a renewal in Bill’s wrath, but it was equally a delicate tweak to potentially diffuse more of the tension between the two. When Dipper didn’t hear an answer, however, he propped himself up on one elbow to find Bill was once again lost in thought, gazing absently up at the stars above them. Dipper watched him for a moment without breaking the silence to see if Bill would come out of it on his own.

Seconds passed and Dipper watched in amazement as the demon’s expression grew ever distant, even a little somber. Dipper didn’t know if he should risk commenting on it or not. Ultimately, he decided against it, choosing instead to lay back down beside Bill. A while passed like that—the two of them lying there, side by side, stargazing. Dipper found it surprisingly peaceful, despite the company.

“He really liked stargazing.”

Bill’s offhand comment was almost lost in the comfortable silence that had settled between the two of them. Dipper only caught it because of the shock of Bill’s tone. It was thoughtful, airy, almost dreamy. Dipper had never in all his time knowing Bill heard him speak in such a way. It was almost unnerving.

“Who?” Dipper questioned idly.

“A friend.” Of course it wasn’t that easy.

Dipper sighed and rolled his eyes in response to Bill’s curt reply. Their conversation was becoming an infuriating back and forth of Dipper grappling with Bill’s secrecy. Bill himself seemed to be in a sentimental mood, dropping bits of information all on his own, but as soon as Dipper started prodding for even the smallest bit of context, he would close off again.

Dipper didn’t want to wait all night for Bill to spill his guts of his own accord.

“Were you close?” Dipper asked cautiously. Perhaps the twenty questions tactic would get him somewhere.

“Mm, I guess. I mean, as close as I could get to a person while hopping from dimension to dimension to liberate the Multiverse—”

“Liberate,” Dipper cut in dryly, “Right.”

“Why do you cherish your universe’s laws so much? They’re so confining, I don’t get it! It’s claustrophobic!”

“Whatever, man.” Dipper wasn’t about to let Bill change the subject. “Anyway, how did you two meet and get close if you were so busy ‘liberating’ dimensions?”

Bill shrugged, and for a moment, he was lost in the stars again, remembering a time long passed. Dipper waited. He didn’t want to undermine the very precarious bridge he was building. After a while of reminiscing and pondering what to say, the demon finally spoke up again. Dipper was surprised by how soft his tone had become. It was somber, almost remorseful, and the fact it was coming from Bill Cipher of all beings shook Dipper to his very core.

“We were both… idealists,” he began, his gaze fixed on the stars, “He had fantasies of a world with no fear. A world of kindness. I had fantasies of a world with no limits. A world of chaos and infinity. As you might expect, we made a Deal to help each other out. At first, I only intended to use him to get what I wanted, but…” Bill trailed off, starting to wonder if all this vulnerability was really a good idea. The stars had that effect on him. _He_ had that effect on him.

Dipper glanced over at Bill from where he lay on the roof beside the demon. His expression was blank, and Dipper couldn’t tell what he was thinking. He wasn’t sure if Bill intended on actually continuing.

“But…?” the teen probed gently. Bill sighed.

“But he started to grow on me,” he continued softly. “He was a bright one. Really clever, and while he may have been shy, he still had a bit of snark to him around the few people he trusted.”

“And he trusted you?”

The question made Bill visibly uncomfortable, his muscles grew tense and his lips pulled taut in a thin line that expressed his lack of willingness to breach the subject. Even then, his eye never left the sky and its stars overhead. By now, Dipper had long foregone the stars and rolled onto his side to observe Bill himself. The normally cagey demon was getting easier and easier to read as the conversation dragged on. Something about this friend of Bill’s had a profound impact on him, Dipper could tell. He could almost see a glimmer of longing in the demon’s eye when he talked about him. Dipper was aching to know more about this mysterious friend.

“Yeah,” Bill finally admitted, “he did. A lot more than he should have. He was an emotional guy, really. Kind and giving to a fault. It didn’t take much for him to get attached, and I…” Bill trailed off again, pausing to chew anxiously on his lip, his sharp fangs threatening to tear the skin there. When he finally continued, his voice was small, almost scared, as though he was afraid to confess what happened to him. “I got scared, because it was starting to rub off on me. I was starting to– to _feel_ things. Things I had snuffed out for my cause eons ago.”

“And you were scared of them coming back?”

“ _Terrified_ ,” Bill stressed. “I needed out. I was desperate to get away and so I–” Bill glanced around anxiously, as though searching for anyone besides Dipper who may be listening. “I broke the Terms of our Deal.”

Dipper raised an eyebrow at this admission, sitting up to look down at the demon incredulously. “That’s it? You break your Deals all the time, Bill. What made this time so—”

“No, no!” Bill cut in before Dipper could finish the question, sitting up as well. “I never break Deals, Pine Tree! Everyone I ever made a Deal with always got what they asked for. It’s just not in the way they expected or wanted. People aren’t careful enough with their words, really, but…”

“But…?”

“But he _was_ ,” Bill sighed. “If anyone knew how to put together an airtight Deal, it was him. There were no loopholes to speak of, and so I– I just panicked and broke the Terms!”

With an exasperated groan, Bill flopped back onto his back again, glaring up at the stars as though they’d personally offended him. Silence fell over the two again as Dipper mulled over what Bill had said.

“Then what _were_ the Terms?” Dipper inquired after Bill had settled more comfortably onto the roof again. “And how did you break them?”

Bill tore his gaze from the stars to look apprehensively off to the side, out into the woods that surrounded the Mystery Shack. For a moment Dipper was disappointed, thinking the demon would refuse to answer, but after a moment he spoke.

“Well the Terms were a bit complicated for me to just hash out, but…” It seemed Bill couldn’t for the life of him keep his gaze torn from the sky for long tonight, as his eye wandered back up to the stars. Dipper wondered if they really were that important to Bill’s friend that they’d have that much of an effect on the demon, but was cut off as Bill continued. “At the end of the day, we promised to keep each other safe, and stay loyal to one another as we worked to make our ideal world a reality.”

Dipper could feel a cold weight settling in the pit of his stomach. “You didn’t answer my other question. What did you do to break those Terms?”

Bill didn’t answer, and Dipper was starting to wonder if he even wanted to know. At this point, he’d forgotten why he’d come up here in the first place—why he was so intent on getting this story out of Bill. The silence stretched out and Dipper shivered from the cold, dark tension that had settled between the two of them like a heavy fog. Whatever Bill had done, it had not been good. It had not been good at all.

“There’s a dimension where you and your sister are the exact opposite of how you are. Did you know that, Pine Tree?” Bill’s sudden matter-of-fact statement threw Dipper for a loop. The demon’s tone had gone cold with a resentment that pierced Dipper’s lungs. “They’re evil, evil people, those twins. Power hungry and sadistic. They fancied themselves magicians—monster hunters, actually! They were searching the interdimensional market for a nice, complacent little pet to use for their magic…”

Dipper was horrified at the implications. Did Bill really pawn his friend off to some cruel twins as some sort of slave? He didn’t want to believe it. Bill had been awful to the Pines, sure, but he’d figured the demon probably saw humans as beneath him. Bill talked about this person like a close friend, like an equal. Dipper never would have imagined Bill was capable of something so awful, and yet the hard-set expression on his face as he stared blankly up at the sky told him an entirely different story.

“You sold him out!?” Dipper exclaimed, “Bill, that’s awful! He trusted you! He saw you as a friend, and– and you saw _him_ as a friend, so why would you–!?”

“I know what I did, Pine Tree!” Bill interrupted angrily, shooting up again to glare daggers at the young Pines, freezing him in his tracks with fear. “And he does, too! Not a day goes by that I don’t regret my decision! I don’t need you to preach to me with your pathetic moral compass!”

Bill growled and averted his gaze after his outburst, hunching over and turning away from Dipper as a heavy, suffocating silence bore down on them. Dipper was horrified, _disgusted_ that Bill had done something so awful to his own friend. Whether the demon regretted it or not didn’t change anything. The fact of the matter was, if Bill was still agonizing over it even now, it could only mean that his friend was still trapped. Bill hadn’t even tried to fix his mistake. The very idea made Dipper sick to his stomach.

“So what,” Dipper inquired bitterly, “that’s it?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Bill growled in response.

“I mean that’s all there is? That friend of yours suffers for who knows how long and you get to sit here and whine about how you fucked up?” Dipper slowly got to his feet, careful not to slip on the roof’s old, wooden slats. He crossed his arms as he stood over Bill, fixing him with a reprimanding look. “That’s kind of messed up, don’t you think?”

When Dipper only got silence in response, he shook his head and sighed. This was hopeless. He turned and began to climb back up to the attic window, leaving Bill hunched over on the roof. Just before he climbed back inside, Dipper glanced back at the demon with disdain.

“Y’know, wallowing in your own self pity isn’t going to make it hurt less,” he muttered coldly. “It’s just as awful to leave him there as it is putting him there in the first place. If nothing else, even if it’s just for your own peace of mind, you should fix your mistake.”

Bill glanced back just in time to see Dipper disappear back into the attic, leaving him alone with his thoughts once more. The demon pulled his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on one knee as he gazed back up at the stars. They were barely visible now, when had it gotten cloudy?

If Bill had to be honest, _not_ being able to see the stars was _worse_.

Bill watched as the clouds continued to roll in, until the stars were completely shrouded from view. He aggressively chewed his lip, nearly tearing it to shreds with his fangs as Pine Tree’s words echoed in his mind. _If nothing else… Even if it’s just for his own peace of mind…_

How long has it even been? Were those twerps even still alive? Bill growled softly, his anger inflamed just thinking about them, only to soften and extinguish the moment he thought about him. His warm smile, his bright laugh, his soft blue hair…

Ruined. Tainted. By those wretched twins, Burning Pine and Falling Star. By what they had done. By _Bill_. By what _Bill_ had done–

Bill stood, then, his hardened gaze sweeping the expanse of the darkened forest before turning to follow Pine Tree’s path back inside. He needed to get to bed. He needed to put this useless meatsack of a body to sleep. He needed to get back into the Mindscape.

There was something he needed to do.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Covered in cuts, bruises, and crusted blood, Will knelt in the center of the basement. The only thing keeping him from collapsing were the chains that hung from the ceiling above, suspending his arms by the wrists over his head. He couldn't spare the energy to heal himself.
> 
> Besides, he hadn't been given permission to anyhow.
> 
> Despite his previous conviction after his talk with Dipper, in the time it had taken Bill’s vessel to zonk out and eject him into the Mindscape, he’d gotten quite a bad case of cold feet. He needed some motivation. What better option was there than some good old, self-inflicted guilt tripping?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note to avoid confusion: The reverse twins maintain the family name Pines in this work. The most common way to differentiate between the two is the reverse twins' honorifics of Master and Madame. In some instances, Will refers to Reverse Mason by name, but he will never, ever be referred to as Dipper in the narrative. Reverse Mabel will always be strictly addressed as Madame or Madame Pines.

How long had it been?

Will Cipher wasn’t sure of the answer. In the pitch darkness of the Pines Mansion’s basement, there was no way to measure the passage of time. Madame Pines’ “visits” were far from reliable—it could be hours or days in between for all Will knew.

They’d have to let him out again at some point, right? He would do better! He’d never make the same mistake again! He would be good! He’d be perfect! Tears pricked Will’s eyes, burning the empty socket of his right. He didn’t think he could handle being trapped down here for eons at once.

_But they wouldn’t do that…_

_… Would_ they…?

Will was snapped out of his downward spiral of thought as the door at the top of the basement stairs opened. Instinctively, every muscle in Will’s vessel tensed, sending a painful ache shooting up his spine. A dark figure stood at the top of the staircase, silhouetted by the light pooling in from the upstairs room behind them. Will could only assume it was Madame Pines, back again for another “visit”. He was proven wrong when the lanterns along the staircase lit, of their own accord, as the figure passed, illuminating the icy gaze of his Master.

Will wasn’t sure if this was better or worse.

When Mason finally touched down at the bottom of the stairs, the remaining lanterns throughout the basement ignited, fully illuminating Will and his surroundings. After so long being shrouded in darkness, the sudden light stabbed at Will's eye, making him cringe.

Now visible were the surroundings of the basement—a long, cold table, a rack of various tools with glinting, sharp edges, blood stains across the table, floor, and walls—making Will's empty stomach churn. The sight of each tool, each bloodstained surface, brought their own particular flashback to the forefront of Will's mind. It wasn't long before Will was trembling, and Mason hadn't even done anything yet.

 _Yet_ , Will reminded himself. The stone-cold fear was still very much warranted.

Covered in cuts, bruises, and crusted blood, Will knelt in the center of the basement. The only thing keeping him from collapsing were the chains that hung from the ceiling above, suspending his arms by the wrists over his head. Dried streaks of tears and blood stained his cheeks, and dark circles lined his eyes, indicative of his exhaustion. Through all the torment in his time in the basement, the sapping of his Magic by Master and Madame Pines never ceased. He couldn't spare the energy to heal himself.

Besides, he hadn't been given permission to anyhow.

“Have you properly thought about your mistakes, Cipher?” Mason inquired bitterly. Will nodded shakily, too fearful to speak. Mason watched him for a moment, his cold gaze sweeping over Will's battered form as though searching for clues to the angel's truthfulness. “Tell me what it is you did wrong, then.”

Terror clenched Will's chest at the order, silencing his response into a pathetic, inaudible mumble. Mason was not at all please with this.

“Pardon?” he snapped, “Speak up, slave.”

“I-I retired to the gardens before completing the tasks assigned to me,” Will squeaked out more clearly.

In actuality, the angel swore that he _had_ finished all of his chores prior to retreating to the gardens, his one place of solace. However, whatever the Master and Madame deemed true, was, without question. Even then, after suffering for so long in the darkness, Will couldn't quite remember if he truly had or not. It became near impossible to judge truth and fiction in the chaos of fear and pain. Will still didn't know how long it had even been since his alleged misdemeanor.

Regardless, Mason seemed satisfied with his answer, as the magician made his way to Will, stopping directly in front of him. His eyes seemed to soften, and though deep down Will knew better than to believe the thin veil of affection, he relished in the artificial comfort as Mason stroked his cheek and sent a shiver down his spine.

“Oh, William, you know how I hate to have to punish you like this,” Mason sighed softly, and Will could feel his Master's breath on his lips as he leaned in closer. “But you just don't seem to learn otherwise, now do you?”

Will whimpered, tilting his head into Mason's caress. “I-”

He heard the sharp crack before he felt the sting in his cheek. His head had snapped to the side when Mason struck him; he dared not turn his head for fear of meeting his Master's cold, disapproving gaze and making matters worse for himself. When Mason spoke again, all the softness of his tone had vanished. “Did I _say_ you could speak?”

Will opened his mouth to respond, only to catch himself and frantically shake his head instead. Mason smirked in satisfaction.

“Now there’s a good pet,” he whispered softly. Will resisted the urge to flinch as his stinging cheek was caressed again. “See? Proper punishment is the only thing that gets through to you.”

Will bit his tongue and listened to Mason's words. Fighting it would only bring about more of Mason's wrath, after all. Will much preferred to lose himself in the magician's rare generosity. Why bother fighting, anyway? His Master was right, after all. Will was pathetic, cumbersome, needing a firm, unforgiving hand to correct his inevitable mistakes. That's what he's learned in all his years serving Master and Madame Pines—all his painful, excruciating years of conditioning into the Pines twins’ perfect pet.

Will was snapped out of his reverie as he felt Mason’s fingers trace along the shackles on his wrists. What had he been saying? Will had stopped listening in his submission to comfort. Was he finally going to be brought back upstairs?

“You’ve been so good, William, so patient during your punishment with Mabel, haven’t you?” Mason commented absently as he trailed his hand from Will’s cheek to tease the hair on the nape of his neck, causing him to shiver. “I came down here with the intention of letting you back upstairs, but…”

The gentle teasing at Will’s neck suddenly became a vice in his hair as Mason forced his head back. The sharp yank drew a pained squeak out of Will as his teary, blue gaze was forced to lock with the magician’s cruel, icy glare.

“This sudden transgression has given me second thoughts,” Mason spat. “I’d figured you knew by now to hold your tongue. Clearly, I was wrong. Perhaps an _extension_ to your punishment is in order?”

The prospect of being abandoned again to the darkness and the wrath of Madame Pines shook Will to his core. There was no stopping the tears that filled his eyes, spilling out in renewed streaks down his cheeks, the stream from his right tinted red with the blood it picked up from the empty socket hidden behind his hair. He wanted to _scream_ , to beg and plead to be spared, for his Master to have mercy.

Will knew better than to open his big mouth again, his cheek still tingling as a painful reminder. He merely watched in trepidation as Mason backed away and turned to return up the stairs without him, each lantern extinguishing as he passed. He paused in the doorway to look down on the beaten angel one final time.

“Perhaps next time, pet,” he muttered coldly, before slamming the door behind him, and Will was left alone again in the darkness to weep.

After a handful of agonizing minutes, the door would open again to the evil grin of Madame Pines.

* * *

When Bill went to sleep that night, he awoke to a world in grayscale.

Upon returning to the Mindscape, he took a moment to take a deep, synthetic breath in and relish in the paradoxically refreshing dead nothingness of his senses. Smell, taste, touch, sensory input was empty here, save for sight and sound. Even then, what remained of them may as well have been dead, too, with the silent, monochrome landscape surrounding him. Nothing moved, time was stopped. The demon couldn’t be bothered to keep it running. Besides, it felt like eternity. He almost liked it that way.

Almost.

The spare room of the Mystery Shack that Bill had been inhabiting lay out before the demon, just as barren as it was in the reality of the waking world. Granted, through the lens of Bill’s mind, the room had a completely different feel. In contrast to the warm, homey atmosphere the Shack provided in reality, Bill’s Mindscape cast a cold, dark filter over everything before him. Rotted holes littered the floor, the roof was caved in at one corner, and out the grimy, shattered window, Bill could see the doors of his memories floating about in the overgrown forest. The entire world looked as though it had been abandoned for decades.

Of course, being the Mindscape, Bill could structure his surroundings however he wanted. He could make the space look like any place he wanted, but that was so much work. It was easier to just copy his environment in reality at the time of his entering. Of course, even that took some work, so it was never a perfect replica. Due to Bill’s own choice of neglect, the illusion always fell apart just as though the world had fallen victim to a disastrous end. He could remember the last time he ever bothered to clean up.

He didn’t particularly like remembering.

Bill could still see the sleeping form of his humanoid vessel in the seemingly ratty, moth-eaten bed. _Good riddance._ As always, he preferred his triangular demon form, and demonstrated as such in the Mindscape. It was so much simpler, and so much more versatile. The meatsack would just slow him down, anyway.

Without him in it, the vessel was nothing but an empty corpse. He’d never had the opportunity to check himself, but it was very likely that it ceased all function when he wasn’t occupying the thing. Bill vaguely wondered how one of the Pines might react to finding his dead body sprawled out in the bed, cold and unresponsive. The image brought a smirking crease to his eye, if only for a moment.

He had things he needed to do.

The demon sighed, the sound casting a faint glow across his form. He floated out the broken window, foregoing the option to utilize the actual doorways in his personal recreation of the Shack. His single, massive eye scanned the post-apocalyptic landscape. Hundreds of thousands of doors were floating everywhere—Bill was eons old, after all. Each one opened up into a different memory, seemingly without any rhyme or reason to their placement. In all honesty, there really wasn’t. Bill never bothered to keep track of where things went unless they were important or special. He couldn’t be bothered to clean up the place. It was his mind. So long as everything worked, he didn’t give a damn how it looked.

It did leave him somewhat disoriented sometimes, though. An endless view of scattered doorways, evidence of eons of experiences, none of them good—it was a mess, that was for sure, and messes could be suffocating at times. It was nothing Bill couldn’t handle, of course. That’s just how it works.

The demon continued idly into the forest in search of a particular cluster of doors, one of the few sets that he actually kept track of, even if he never entered them.

Despite his previous conviction after his talk with Dipper, in the time it had taken Bill’s vessel to zonk out and eject him into the Mindscape, he’d gotten quite a bad case of cold feet. He needed some motivation. What better option was there than some good old, self-inflicted guilt tripping?

As Bill continued on his path, the trees in the forest slowly began to thin out. The dark clouds overhead gave way to a grayscale starry sky, and a light mist rolled in, hanging low to the ground. Finally, he emerged from the forest to come to the shore of a glossy lake. Doors hovered in the air just above the water, much like everywhere else in the Mindscape. Only Bill could understand how these doors were different, special even.

Bill glided out over the lake and paused to look down at his reflection in the water’s smooth surface. No ripples distorted the image; it was like a mirror. Bill’s yellow figure stared back at him, just as blankly as the demon himself, the only color to be found in his realm of unreality.

The last time Bill had seen his Mindscape in full color was archived behind one of these doors.

The absent thought snapped Bill back to the task at hand. With an idle hum, he looked up from the water to take in the doors around him. Just seeing them already had guilt settling in the pit of his stomach like a soul-sucking newt. It was an unusual sensation in a place where, for all intents and purposes, all sensations should be dead. It was nauseating, and yet still not enough to bring his conviction back.

 _Better get this show in the road, then,_ Bill thought glumly. After careful consideration, the demon settled to simply starting at the beginning. He hesitated at the door of his choice before steeling himself and opening it for the first time in eons. At first glance, there only appeared to be darkness within. That was how Bill had designed it. It deterred any prying eyes.

Unfortunately, it had the same effect on Bill himself.

Bill didn’t like to revisit his memories in general, least of all these memories in particular. While few were truly all that bad individually, one or two bad brains ruined the hive, as they said.

He was stalling again.

Bill groaned, eyeing the darkened doorway as though it had personally offended him, which, arguably, it had. It seemed to taunt him. The longer Bill waited, the longer _he_ would suffer from what Bill had done. Bill hated most how right it was. Enough was enough, he was going. As if to prove to himself and the door how capable he was, Bill finally plunged into the darkness that shrouded the first of his memories—the day he met William Cipher.

* * *

It was among the rubble of the ruins of Bill’s newest liberation project that he’d found a being identical to himself, assisting and healing the wounded. Bill never understood what it was about him that drew the demon in so much. He’d seen beings that had a similar appearance. He was a triangle. They were common. Sure, this one initially seemed like an easy sucker, but what kept Bill from putting him to use and being done with it? He’d dragged it out way longer than necessary.

In the beginning, Bill only watched his blue doppelganger most of the time. Watched how he zipped from victim to victim in an anxious frenzy. Watched how he took so much care to make sure everyone had what they needed. Watched how fair and kind he was.

It made him sick, and yet, he still watched.

What was with this being’s obsession with equality? Didn’t he see that it was an everyone-for-themselves world? It wasn’t just in this universe, either. The entire Omniverse was that way. Bill always sought to turn that concept on its head, literally. He would make the strong weak to give the weak a chance to become strong. Whether that happened or not was up to them, while Bill sat idly by to enjoy the show.

Rather than turn the way of everything on its head, however, this tiny being seemed fixated on eradicating it completely, to make everyone the same. The very idea almost bored Bill to tears, and yet he continued to watch him bounce around, clearly exhausted and yet more than happy to offer help anyone who may need it.

It didn’t surprise Bill at all when he realized his fellow triangle was an angel.

Naturally, being opposite species, they played by the same rules, only slightly differently. They both made Deals, and they were both bound by the Terms of those Deals. It was how they played these Deals, and how they put them to use, that made the difference between a demon and an angel.

The name of Bill’s game was opened-ended Deals. Deals that weren’t worded entirely the way they should be were the bread and butter of his entire operation. His trade was to make his unsuspecting partner believe they were getting a fair, airtight Deal, when in actuality, it was filled with tiny holes the demon could easily exploit later. His very being practically breathed _be careful what you wish for!_

Bill had made Deals with angels before. They’d always been dead set on equivalent exchange. They liked to keep things fair. It was never hard for Bill to give off an air of equality. That was his whole game, after all. Angels had never been an issue in his Deals. Tricking this poor, good-hearted lookalike of his would be a cinch.

At least, that's what he'd thought initially.

After weeks and weeks of watching the little blue triangle carry out his one-man rescue service, Bill finally approached him. He didn't even need anything from him, but god if Bill wasn't drawn to the angel. He couldn't exactly place why at the time. He'd written it off as a simple fascination with his drive to help people.

_Oh, how clear it’d become in hindsight._

“Well, well, well! You seem pretty hard at work, don’tcha?” Bill called from where he hovered high above, watching.

The blue triangle below stiffened, frozen in the middle of healing one of the many battered beings of this particular universe. He glanced up toward the source of the voice and Bill swore he saw some of that adorable bright blue drain from the angel’s form. He’d figured out what Bill was instantly.

“Demon…”

“Ooh,” Bill cooed with intrigue, “such a clever boy you are! So much for the element of surprise!” The demon drifted down beside the angel with an amused twinkle in his eye as he offered his hand. He always did love a good challenge. “The name’s Bill Cipher! And you are…?”

The angel looked at Bill’s outstretched hand and blinked. Slowly, his brow furrowed as he looked up to meet Bill’s eye with an incredulous look. Bill was pleasantly surprised when his hand was slapped away, the angel turning his back on him to finish his work and move on.

“Forgive me, but I know better than to shake a demon’s hand.”

The sting in Bill’s chest at the rejection was surely just his imagination.

Bill let him go for now, if only to step back and plan his next moves. Even an interaction as small as this had provided a trove of information that he would never have learned merely watching from a distance.

This one was evidently a lot more well read about demons than most of his kind, and despite how skittish he seemed when Bill was watching him, he apparently wasn’t afraid to be curt with the likes of Bill. Days of observation had given Bill the impression of a fragile, kind-hearted ball of anxiety, but clearly that was only visible because the angel was comfortable and unaware of his audience. There was a shell of snark and cynicism to be breached if Bill ever had any hope to access that soft, vulnerable center.

He might be able to have some fun with this after all.

Bill wondered for a long time after that first encounter what direction he should take with his new pet project before ultimately settling on attempting to gain the angel’s trust. Sure, it would be significantly more difficult, since he clearly was familiar enough with demons to distrust them immediately, but that just meant Bill would get to think outside the box.

He ignored the nagging question in the back of his mind as to why he was so dead-set on interacting with this angel in the first place, and set to work planning the next few days of forcing his way into the blue triangle’s life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, does anyone still live in this fandom?
> 
> A continuation of this fic was requested from several sources, but my life got super busy with a podcast I run (coughcoughseeendnotescough) and then the start of a new job. As such, I ended up just sitting on Terms for several months, before finally attempting to tackle it over Nanowrimo.
> 
> Suffice to say, I only managed to complete one chapter over the entire month, and draft a little bit of the next. I gave fair warning that this would have a severely irregular update schedule. I'll keep writing when and where I can, though, with the intention of seeing it through to the end. Feel free to get on my case and nag me, but kindly. Sometimes I need a little motivation.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for stopping by! Please lemme know what you thought, so I can continue improving!
> 
> Please consider checking out other stuff I do on my tumblr, [here!](https://williamwonderland.tumblr.com) I also draw and do some craft stuff, and you can even commission me, both for art and writing!
> 
> I am also the cohost to a podcast that follows the story of a pair of twins living in a mysterious town called Aurora Park. Check it out [here!](https://zerotochaos.tumblr.com)


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